Belezian Fishing Boat off Cay Caulker

Well, we left Isla Mujeres this morning at 0500 hrs in the dark, the first boat out of the anchorage. A first for us. We were followed closely by Seabird.
Exiting Isla Mujeres required us to run down a short narrow channel that was well lit, then down through the harbor where we turned west at what is supposed to be a lighted mark. We wove our way down the harbor between the anchored boats and all was well except for two boats anchored right in the channel and showing no anchor lights. But we had our hi-power spotlight out and were able to see them and avoid them.
Then we began to look for the first red mark. Its light was out too, and we spotted it when we were only a couple of boat lengths from it, so safely avoided it. Safely out of the harbor, we headed north to clear the northern tip of the island, then onto our course for Key West.
Our plan was to leave yesterday, but the wind didn't cooperate. It stayed strong and out of the east, keeping us and all the others fussing in the harbor. The problem is that this weather window lasts only until some time Wednesday. There is a weak cold front approaching, and with its approach the winds will clock (shift in a clock-wise direction) from the SE to South then west and north-west before resuming the normal north-east direction. And we want to be in before they return to the north-east, late Wednesday. But if the winds hold strong enough, we'll be OK.
At the moment they're too light for sailing, so we're motor-sailing, and we may be doing quite a bit of it on this trip, as the forecast is for light winds until they go north-west on Wednesday. But we have lots of fuel, so that part is OK, its just a bit noisy. But life could be worse!
Today's project is to maximize the benifit and minimize the negatives of the gulf stream as we sail ease. It runs north at 2.5 knots past Isla Mujeres and continues north about 250 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. Then it does a U-turn and runs south, hitting the Cuban coast and resuming its eastward route. Our route is north-east, so we got a boost from its northward pull, but we don't to get swept too far north, so we have to time it to exit and runn across the bottom of an eddy that the horseshoe run creates, then pick it up again when it heads east.
We got a set of waypoints from Chris Parker that should help us, and we just left the northward current and are trying to find the eddy to "sling-shot us across the bottom. The difference between finding the current and not, or worse, finding a counter-current could be up to 12 hours, so we'll take some time to make sure we find it.